


Kaworu’s Attempt At Assimilating With The Lilim

by bowfly



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Kaworu does not know how being a human works, Light-Hearted, Nagisa Kaworu Lives, Slice of Life, Will tag more characters/relationships as they show up, anyways. onto general tags, asuka is gay and homophobic, bow’s ideal eva slice of life universe, but ik ritsuko is kaworu’s guardian and kaworu doesn’t necessarily die, ig its shinji ikari raising project continuity? idk anything abt the games, so it’s closest to that, still technically the anime continuity but kaworu is alive and things are fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29665296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowfly/pseuds/bowfly
Summary: Well, now that Kaworu isn’t dead.. he’s got to figure out how to blend in with other kids his age.(maayybe a oneshot collection if i ever end up finishing another chapter. don’t expect too much from ol bow)
Relationships: Akagi Ritsuko & Nagisa Kaworu, Ayanami Rei & Nagisa Kaworu, Ikari Shinji/Nagisa Kaworu
Comments: 6
Kudos: 41





	1. How Is One To Figure Out Being Human With No Help?

Well. Kaworu isn’t dead yet. And he isn’t quite sure why that is, because usually by now he’s been crushed in Unit 01’s fist or strangled or blown up or something. He survived the initial encounter with Unit 01 and Shinji at Central Dogma— which isn’t completely new— but he’s never survived this long afterwards. Kaworu has two hypotheses in mind: either someone is planning something truly horrible for him, or this loop is finally going to be one where he doesn’t die at the ripe old age of fifteen. He highly doubts the latter option. 

But now that Kaworu’s got some time to think about things other than the Third Impact and SEELE, he’s got other things to worry about. Namely, he isn’t quite sure how normal lilin teenagers act. He can’t ask Shinji for advice— he’ll just say that Kaworu acts fine as he is (this is because Shinji is very sad and starved of affection and he likes that Kaworu solves these problems), and he can’t ask Asuka either because she ‘doesn’t like fruity homos like him’, despite the fact that she is dating a girl herself. 

So, what is an angel to do in this predicament? Go to Dr. Akagi! Duh! She’s the spitting image of a normal human, right? Well.. maybe Major Katsuragi is a little more normal, but she doesn’t care for him much. Dr. Akagi does not hold any distaste for Kaworu, though, so he goes right to her as soon as he’s got a moment to himself. She turns from her computer to face him as he approaches.

“Hello, Kaworu. Do you need something?” Dr. Akagi always speaks to him like she has better things to do, sort of like a public school nurse or secretary.

“Hello, Dr. Akagi! I was wondering if I could ask you for some advice.. I’m not really certain how you lilin act and I was hoping you could help me.” Dr. Akagi seems puzzled by his request. Her eyebrows furrow together (Kaworu’s only seen Shinji do that before. Is that what all lilim do when they’re confused? He makes a mental note of that.)

“I think you act pretty normal for a kid your age. You shouldn’t worry about that, you’re fine how you are.” Dr. Akagi turns back to her computer. So she can’t help him either, huh.. well, Kaworu will just have to figure out on his own then! He’s done that before, so it can’t be that hard. Right? Right. 

“I guess you’re right.. there’s more important things to worry about. Thank you, Dr. Akagi!” Kaworu turns and walks away. 

Now comes the question: how is he to figure out how to be normal without just asking? Usually when he’s confused, he just asks someone for the answer, but this is a question that no one will answer for him. Guess he’s just going to have to figure this out the hard way.. hopefully it doesn’t lead to the same amount of strangling and getting crushed that figuring out what Shinji likes did. 

Speaking of Shinji, there he is on his way out as well! Perfect timing! Kaworu picks up his pace a little to walk beside him, causing Shinji to turn around to see who’s there. He smiles when he sees it’s only Kaworu and not Asuka running up to smack him in the back of the head again. 

“Oh, hi Kaworu! What are you doing here still?” Shinji stops walking to let Kaworu catch up. Kaworu links his hand with Shinji’s once he catches up, and the two resume walking.

“I just had a question for Dr. Akagi. Why were you here so late?” 

“I figured it would be easier to just finish my homework here, instead of at home.. Asuka and Misato are usually too loud for me to focus.” Kaworu nods in understanding. Those two seem to always be in some sort of argument, at least when Asuka isn’t preoccupied with fighting with Shinji. “What did you have to ask Miss Ritsuko?” Ah, Kaworu didn’t want to ask Shinji this question. But.. he’d rather not keep things from him either. 

“I was just asking for some advice on acting more normal, that’s all. She didn’t really have any for me, though..” Shinji seems confused at the prospect of Kaworu asking for advice like that. 

“You don’t need to act more normal, Kaworu.. I think you’re just fine the way you are.” Kaworu can’t help but smile at his response. He knew Shinji would say that, of course.. but Shinji really is just too sweet. That never changes. 

“Of course you’d say that, Shinji. You lilim always dance around each other’s feelings, so you don’t hurt each other or yourselves. I know that I act strange compared to you or other people our age, it won’t hurt my feelings for you to admit it.” Shinji frowns at Kaworu’s words.

“But I mean it.. you really don’t act so weird. You don’t need to change at all.” _‘Lilim really are strange,’_ Kaworu thinks to himself, _‘even once I’ve assured him it’s okay to admit it, he keeps it to himself.’_

“You’re really too nice, Shinji. Thank you.” Shinji smiles at him, and Kaworu remembers what he’s been looping all these times for. That smile. _‘That’s something the lilim would call ‘cheesy’ though, right?’_

“Kaworu.. you’re staring, you know.” Ah. Kaworu hadn’t even realized. He quickly turns to face forwards before Shinji can notice how red his face got so fast. Maybe he’s already too much like the lilim. 

“Oh— uh, my bad.” The rest of their walk home is spent in a comfortable silence. The two part ways once Kaworu arrives at his apartment. He walks inside and is greeted by Rei. 

“Hello, Kaworu. You were late to come home today.” Rei points out the obvious. Kaworu puts his bag down and sits next to Rei on the floor. 

“I realized, sorry about that! I wanted to ask Dr. Akagi for advice, and then I got a little caught up with talking to Shinji..” Kaworu smiles just thinking about it. Something the lilim would call ‘hopeless’, or something Asuka would call ‘super gross and way too sappy’.

“It’s alright. But, since Dr. Akagi isn’t going to be home for a while.. we are going to have to figure out dinner for ourselves.” Kaworu nods.

“I’m sure we can manage that. Did Dr. Akagi leave any money for us to order food?” Rei shakes her head.

“She did leave ingredients in the fridge, though. I think she would like us to prepare dinner for ourselves.” That’s bad news, considering Rei and Kaworu are not exactly the most experienced at cooking. But.. they can manage. 

Hopefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! thanks for reading! 
> 
> i just love the idea of kaworu having to figure out how to act normal while surrounded by the weirdest kids ever. i just want these kids to be happy so i’m writing this. 
> 
> i haven’t written for a while, so forgive me if the pacing is off.


	2. Someone Call Rachel Ray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone call Rachel Ray because oh lord, Rei and Kaworu are learning how to cook.

In living together, Kaworu and Rei realized they have a lot more in common than just being angels. They both have an affinity for playing music, they both love Dr. Akagi’s new cat (affectionately dubbed Lilith Jr), they both like playing Pokémon Red on Rei’s old Gameboy late at night when Dr. Akagi is sleeping..

And they are both absolutely miserable at cooking. 

“Uhm.. I’m not sure this is how food is supposed to look.” Kaworu looks down at the torched cup noodles in front of them. They hadn’t realized there were directions, and they quickly got bored of watching generic cooking tutorials on YouTube.. so they decided to test out Kaworu’s hypothesis of “just put the food on the stove and it will be edible”. This hypothesis was proven so horribly wrong, considering that the smoke alarm went off and the two had to open every window in their immediate vicinity to ease the stench of it.

“I don’t think this is right, either. Maybe we were supposed to add water.” Rei has a slight advantage over Kaworu at cooking, and that is that she knows what some food is supposed to look like. She has been to restaurants, while Kaworu most certainly has not. The last time Kaworu went to a restaurant was when he was four years old and some SEELE scientist hadn’t noticed him sneaking into his back seat on his way home from work. Needless to say, Kaworu didn’t get any of his McDonald’s and somebody got fired that night. 

“Maybe.. they didn’t mention water in any of the tutorials we watched, though.” Kaworu picks up the still-solid block of noodles. Definitely not cooked correctly.

“That is true, but in ramen restaurants, there’s a broth that the noodles come in. So, maybe we’re supposed to add water for that.” Rei thinks back on getting ramen with Shinji, Asuka and Major Katsuragi. That was pretty fun.. maybe Major Katsuragi will treat them all to dinner again sometime, and Kaworu can come this time. Kaworu nods.

“Is that so? I wish we could just order food.. this is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.” Kaworu sighs in defeat. He always thought cooking was easy.. just combine all the ingredients together. Very simple. He didn’t know about stoves and pans and those things.

“It is hard, yes. Maybe we can call someone to help us.” Rei suggests. 

“We could do that. But, isn’t this a necessary skill? Maybe we ought to figure it out ourselves so we know how to cook in the future.” Kaworu sits down on the countertop. Rei nods.

“You are correct.. maybe we should try a different recipe. This one is beyond our comprehension.” Kaworu nods. Yes, Cup Noodles are much too confusing. The two huddle around Rei’s aged smartphone and type ‘Easy recipenot alot of cooking;:: ghd;:’ 

..Forgive their typing, they aren’t exactly tech savvy.

They scour through countless websites and countless recipes that claim to be ‘easy’ or ‘only two steps’. Kaworu and Rei have never even heard of half of the ingredients on all of these pages. What is dijon mustard? And why did these recipes almost always call for it? The two retreat to the living room and sit down in defeat, sighing.

“We will just have to be hungry, then.” Rei says, frowning. Kaworu nods defeatedly, hanging his head. He really thought they would be able to figure it out.. cooking sounded very simple. It was most definitely not. They both lift their heads at the sound of the door unlocking. Dr. Akagi visibly recoils at the still-pungent smell of absolutely torched Cup Noodles.

“What happened here?” Ritsuko covers her nose with her arm, closing the door behind her with her free hand. “Did you two try to burn the house down or something? It smells like burnt..” She turns her head to the kitchen. Oh. That’s what happened here. “..food.” Why didn’t she realize her two science experiment children wouldn't know how to cook? 

“We tried to make ourselves something to eat..” Rei starts, looking down at her lap.

“..it didn’t go very well. We apologize for the smell, Dr. Akagi.” Kaworu finishes her sentence. Ritsuko sighs. 

“It’s.. alright. Did you guys eat anything after.. doing this?” Both Rei and Kaworu shake their heads. Well, it looks like Ritsuko’s got three options. She can make food for herself and two kids, go buy something from the store, or.. ask Misato if the three of them could come over for dinner. As much as Ritsuko loves Misato (in a ‘repressed feelings from college that are not going to be acknowledged anytime soon’ sort of way), the woman is an absolutely abysmal cook. She’d almost rather eat the Cup Noodles that Rei and Kaworu made. Plus, every time she goes over to Misato’s apartment, Asuka and Shinji are screaming at each other and she doesn’t feel like listening to that while she’s eating. And she doesn’t exactly feel like cooking either.

“Alright then.. how about we go get something to eat, then? My treat.” Both Rei and Kaworu’s heads perk up at this. They nod, standing in unison. Ritsuko can’t help but smile a bit. Her kids might be weird.. and a little scary, at times (like when Kaworu neglected to tell her he has red eyeshine like a fucking opossum and nearly gave her a heart attack when she walked into the living room at 3am to see why the cat was screaming), but they are her kids. She thinks about letting Rei get Pokémon cards at the store this time because of this sentimental break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so maybe this will become a oneshot collection .. i enjoy writing this very much. maybe it’ll take me a while to update every now and again but i hope you’ll all enjoy the infrequent additions! 
> 
> ikkkk in canon ritsuko is a shitty caretaker to rei but this is My fic and i get to make her a little nicer . MY coping fic. MINE. 
> 
> anyways who wants a chapter on tabris’ mcdonalds drive thru escapades


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